News

September 15, 2010

Lots of interesting non-election stuff in the news, too! Here’s a little review:

Reutersreports, “A new survey of primary care practices in North Carolina
shows nearly one in six patients believed their physician had made a wrong
diagnosis or a treatment error, and about one in seven said they had changed
doctor as a result.… [E]ight percent said they had experienced ‘a lot’ or
‘severe’ harm from the perceived mistake in care."

Meanwhile, a new study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that “telling physicians they shouldn't accept gifts from drug companies is all
well and good.But convincing them
that doing so is wrong is another matter... [P]hysicians rationalize such gifts as payback for all the sacrifices they made
to get their education -- although they may not realize they're doing it.The attitude, the researchers said, is
one of ‘because I'm worth it.’”

Here’s another thing some docs may
think they’re entitled to do: branding body parts. Smoking Gun reports,“After performing a hysterectomy
last year, a California gynecologist used a cauterizing tool to brand his
patient’s name on her removed uterus, an unorthodox move that the doctor calls
a ‘friendly gesture,’ but which the woman terms ‘despicable conduct’ in a
medical negligence lawsuit.”

As for one of the medical establishment’s best “tort reform”
allies, the tobacco industry, they’re having a good day thanks to Supreme Court Antonin Scalia, who
granted their request to block “a state court order requiring tobacco companies
to pay $270 million for a smoking cessation program in Louisiana.”We’ll see what happens when the full
court gets its hands on this case – a class action that the tobacco industry
lost.

And now that we’re on the topic ofdoctors and tobacco, Texas Magistrate says that Texas'
brutal, anti-patient tort reform law, which “capped medical liability for
non-economic damages at $250,000, doesn't violate victims' constitutional
rights.” Yeah, the business and medical lobbies
took care of that by getting the constitution changed first.

BP oil fund administrator Ken Feinberg has changed his tune
on ruling that certain businesses are ineligible to submit claims based on
“proximity.”
That may seem like a victory for some, but not so fast.Check out Olbermann’s Worst Person’s
segment last night on MSNBC, skewering BP and its new chief executive, Bob Dudley, over
their recent courtroom shenanigans.Read, or watch, below:

BP's court filings say the fishermen, seafood processors,
hotel owner, restaurateur, oyster farmers and the like must first apply to
relief from the official BP compensation fund, that they must play that game of
bureaucratic red tape before they can begin to sue. Even the lawyers are saying
they should wait until next March before which test cases should proceed to
trial and which should not. That's moving too fast for BP and now we know why.BP agreed to the $20 billion fund.
Because it buys them time for the public to forget, for the remaining oil to
dissipate, for them to potentially lose internal memos and e-mails and text
messages and other evidence of their culpability, and especially time for the
victims to run out of money with which to pay their lawyers. Bob Dudley of BP,
never did figure out what the P really stands for. But the B is clearly for
bastards, today's worst person in the world.

January 22, 2010

Right now, there probably no way to adequately describe the horror that the U.S. Supreme Court just rained down on this country with its decision yesterday in Citizens United v. FEC. As the New York Times put it today, “With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.”

Yes, Congress must fix this somehow, but it’s also good to know that there are state Attorneys General out there who are trying to stop fundraising corruption and see this as part of their job. Like NY’s AG Andrew Cuomo, who filed a lawsuit Wednesday against four New York “fundraising” companies to “shut them down for lying manipulating, and deceiving to get charitable donations.”

* Used aliases and illegally failed to disclose they were paid fund-raisers.

* Changed the names of charities to sound similar to well-known charities or causes.

* Lied about the programs client charities actually provided.

* Filed false annual documents with the state attorney general's office containing fake scripts that were made to seem like the ones used by their telemarketers.

Consumer friendly state AG’s have already had a big target on their back for protecting the public from all sorts of corporate misbehavior. The terrifying impact of Citizens United on state AG races can only be imagined. Brace yourselves.

Of course, this all comes as great news, particularly in light of the Bush Administrations comparatively lax (and grotesquely corporate-friendly) regulatory standards. Still, as encouraging as this might be, it’s worth emphasizing that regulations after the fact don't do much to help already injured children, some of whom have been mutilated—nor does it help the families of those killed due to corporate negligence. Lawsuits provide often catastrophically injured victims with the means to pay for excessive medical bills and other injury-related expenses. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized this “distinct compensatory function that may motivate injured persons to come forward with information.” Lawsuits can ensure such regulations are followed and increase awareness, which in turn, informs busy parents about dangers that are hard to see.

So bravo that federal agencies have been taking more aggressive steps to help protect America’s kids. But let’s not forget that the civil justice system is a crucial complement to our regulatory structure.

January 19, 2010

It seems our friends over at Dick Cheney’s favorite think tank, the Manhattan Institute (MI), saw fit to take a break from honoring Martin Luther King yesterday to give props to our recent coverage of Christina Catalano’s brave face-off with Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne on behalf of more than 1000 families whose legal rights were wiped out by the Chrysler/GM bankruptcies – a result that clearly didn’t have to be.

So in honor of this special coverage, we have more! Take a look (below) at a video of Christina’s impassioned speech about these victims – including her own mother. She points out the fact that she and most of her family are union members from Michigan who want these companies to succeed but not at the unnecessary expense of victims or consumer safety. The speech took place at a Teamsters rally outside the Detroit auto show, joined by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and Detroit Rainbow/PUSH President Rev. D. Alexander Bullock. The rally was to bring attention to this: GM and Chysler are replacing experienced union haulers who know how to deliver the company’s vehicles safely and securely, with less experienced lower-wage contract workers, which, according to a new report by Wayne State professor and national truck safety expert Michael Belzer “Fiat/Chrysler’s moves to cut-rate car haul companies will likely lead to more accidents on our nations’ roads.”

Families like the Catalanos want accountability and they want to make sure preventable car tragedies happen to no one else. That’s the Teamster’s message, as well. Cutting safety corners is not the way to sell cars. We hope someone over there at GM and Chrysler are listening!

According to the story, the families’ attorney Mary Shiavo, the well-known former DOT official and airline safety advocate, said the settlements “are likely to include language requiring evidence to be displayed at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum,” and that “public display of evidence collected for trial by lawyers in the case was important to the families, [calling] the museum a fitting place for it," adding, "the materials were likely to be put in the museum's reading room.” This would be a major, publicly important achievement for these families.

Mike Low, one of these two family members who sued on behalf of his daughter, Sara, who was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, told CBS News in September, "If it was about money, I would have been gone a long time ago. It's about ferreting out all the untold stories of the days leading up to 9/11 and 9/11. It's accountability, it's exposure, it's shining a light on some of those areas that have been successfully hidden from the public….When the trial is complete, I will have done all that I can do….And when I see that old man in the mirror in the morning, I'll be comfortable."

Speaking of Nevada, consider the case of Roshunda Abney (see video below) who was refused treatment last November at the University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas, NV. Abney, who was unaware of the fact that she was pregnant and in labor, showed up at the hospital’s ER in excruciating pain. Nevertheless, Abney was made to wait more than five hours in UMC’s ER before eventually seeking help from nearby Valley Hospital Medical Center, where her baby was born—and shortly thereafter, died. Abney currently has a lawsuit pending against UMC—but the story doesn’t end there.

According to state records obtained by the Las Vegas Sun, Abney’s case was “just the latest in a handful of [similar] cases” at UMC over the past five years. Patients who received similar treatment (or lack thereof) included a woman bleeding profusely with seven fractures in her face, a woman in labor who was told the hospital had no beds for her as she watched another pregnant woman stroll right in (“Some people have priorities,” the hospital explained, according to the state report), and a man with a “fever, elevated white blood cell count, and possible abscess” on his spine.

You get the idea. Hospital ERs continue to be incredibly dangerous places—and any suggestion that ER personnel should somehow be immunized from liability for such blatant mishaps makes about as much sense as, well…telling a bleeding woman with seven facial fractures to wait her turn “like everyone else.”

January 06, 2010

The “hot mess” that is the Chinese drywall fiasco seems to be getting hotter by the day—at least according to blockbuster investigative piece by Tim Elfrink in today’s Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

While the story is striking on numerous levels, what particularly caught our attention was the blatant culpability of developers and builders, who were so eager to cash in on the late 1990s/early 2000s housing boom, that consumer safety was essentially tossed out the window. In fact, until then, Chinese drywall manufacturers like Knauf Tianjin “rarely exported drywall to the States.” But when the U.S. housing market “exploded”, Chinese companies started supplying drywall that “the company eventually knew was faulty.”

Home­owners immediately reported problems, but that didn’t stop the builders. As Richard Kampf, a former EPA chief who was one of the first homeowners to raise a red flag about Chinese drywall (in 2007) discovered, some manufacturers and builders knew as early as 2006 that something was wrong with the drywall. “They knew this stuff was bad, and they kept right on shipping it. And Florida builders kept right on using it.”

Meanwhile, the government’s reaction, whether due to a lack of coordination or the considerable political influence of developers who, are “the most politically connected industry in Florida,” has been anything but stellar. Said state Senator Dave Aronberg, "The government has dragged its feet on testing, the state has not acted... and there's been no real legislation….It's inertia, and it's a sheer lack of political will holding us back." In fact, said Aronberg, "The only people taking any initiative are trial lawyers."

Lawsuits against “the builders, the importers, the manufacturers, and the distributors” have now been filed in Florida, Virginia, and Louisiana, which are “the three states most affected by the drywall.” Many are class actions and in one, “Knauf, the German-owned company that seems to have imported the most Chinese drywall to Florida, has agreed to be tried in Louisiana.” That’s a good start.

January 05, 2010

We’ve said many times – and the evidence seems to keep on comin’ – that if there’s a problem with doctors’ ordering too many tests, the reasons have to do with the fees they get, not “lawsuits.”

Like this story out of (guess where?) Texas. Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital just coughed up $1 million to settle a suit with the U.S. Attorneys office who said they had a deal with a doctors’ group to run a blood gas lab and then submitted claims to Medicare for “interpreting” blood tests that didn’t need to be interpreted at all.

Meanwhile, in parts further north, a self-styled Minnesota-based “country doctor” named Stanley Gallagher has agreed, along with Wheaton County Hospital to pay a $900k settlement for unnecessarily admitting patients to the hospital and keeping them there too long in order to inflate their bills to Medicare.

In one glaring example, a “a 91-year-old man with a history of back pain was admitted [to the hospital] because he had pain radiating down the back of his leg. He spent six days in acute care and was treated with oral pain medication and physical therapy.” To the astonishment of no one, government “medical experts said that treatments did not require acute level in-patient care.”

Meanwhile, “Gallagher was disciplined by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice in 2004 for delivering substandard care, although the sanctions were lifted in 2006.” Another theme of ours, with Minnesota ranking at the very last in the country for serious disciplinary actions against doctors.

Anyway, you get this idea. There are too many bad docs out there who view their license to practice medicine as a license to gouge. Here’s hoping Congress takes note as it prepares to “reconcile” the House and Senate health care bills.

January 04, 2010

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, much has been written about deaths that could have been prevented but for the negligence of various institutions. We’ve covered the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers, and its “monumental negligence” for not maintaining the levees that collapsed. But now, we are finding out that many excruciating deaths in hospital and nursing homes could have been prevented too.

A joint project of the New York Times and ProPublica has reported on a massive corporate failure at New Orleans hospitals to establish emergency backup power systems, causing patients to slowly die as they “languished for days awaiting transport.”

In fact, three years before Katrina, one of Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital’s senior executives wrote in a report that the hospital lacked the amount of generators needed “to accommodate an emergency flood with 15 feet of water,” and that one of hospital’s two main generators would be “nonfunctional in about two feet of flood water.” The report, written in response to similar flooding that had already occurred in Texas, recommended that a $7.5 million fix be undertaken to avert such a disaster. That warning was never heeded.

One of the patients who died at Pendelton was 73-year-old Althea LaCoste. In her family’s lawsuit, they say she died horribly and, in turns out, unnecessarily, in “sweltering heat after nurses spent hours pumping air into her lungs by hand in the pitch dark...".

Meanwhile, according to Robert Wise, vice-president of the Joint Commission, the accreditation body for most American hospitals, “There are many [hospitals] that still know they have to move their generator,” and that without power, will be “literally dead in the water.”

It seems there’s simply no end to the institutional negligence surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

It’s time for our first bit of irony for The New Decade. While the business and medical lobbies have turned the U.S. civil justice system into an embattled and vulnerable institution, trying to strip victims here of their legal rights, China – one of the world’s worst human rights abusers – let alone having a pretty bad record on civil justice – is now greatly broadening access to civil justice for its citizens. A new law, which passed muster with the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee last week, will take effect in July, and cover “a range of liabilities, including traffic and medical accidents, work-related injuries, pollution, harm caused by pets and mental distress.”

"That's a breakthrough. It's the first time Chinese laws have such clear stipulations on mental damage compensation," said Wang Shengming, deputy director of the legislative affairs commission of the NPC Standing Committee.

Victims of major traffic accidents and mine disasters can also get the same payouts, regardless of whether they are from urban or rural areas.

People can now demand more than their actual losses if companies continue to make products they know are defective, another first for Chinese legislation, legal experts said.

Yang Lixin, a professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing who helped draft the law, said the rule could be applied for victims of the Sanlu baby formula scandal.

According to the Ministry of Health, at least six babies were killed and more than 300,000 others made ill by baby food tainted with melamine, most of which was made by the Sanlu group.

Take note U.S. Chamber of Commerce and all of your corporate friends, even the Chinese consider the civil justice system a source of national pride that ultimately makes it possible for the the weak and defenseless to sometimes get justice. Perhaps they were shamed into doing this. You should be shamed too.

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